Author: Lois | Page 63 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Better Safe Than Sorry? Let Galatians Help! Pt. 1

For those who may yet be struggling with all the rules which are often passed off as representative of holiness, I want to share and encourage you to sit down and read through the book of Galatians. Perhaps do this several times and with different Bible versions. In another writing, Does Salvation Come And Go, this line of thinking was mentioned.

How these rules are taught varies greatly from church to church. What really distresses me is when I see people write on various forums that “it’s better to be safe than sorry” in regard to outward standards or other church rules.

What this says is that they don’t know for sure if the teachings are necessary in order to remain saved, so they will abide to be on the safe side. For them, it would be better to follow and find they were not mandated by God, than to not follow them and find they were necessary in order to make it to heaven. What is one more rule when you believe your eternal destination is at stake? For many, there is no long lasting sense of security when living in this manner. Most will slip up and break a rule here and there in a weak moment.

That mindset is so sad. People are believing that perhaps God may be hiding something pertaining to salvation and so they better play it safe and do what is taught, even though they obviously don’t see [whatever the teaching is] as biblical. It has been instilled in them to obey the pastor. Perhaps there may somehow be ‘fine print’ in the Bible that they don’t see, like what some businesses attempt to hide in contracts.

I mention reading Galatians because Paul addresses the problem of them starting out their walk with God by faith and then later becoming entangled with works. The Galatians believers were now trusting in those works to make them right before God. He brought to their remembrance how Abraham believed God, and that was credited to him as righteousness.

I want you to think about what I am going to share and let it sink in. This is what some do who elevate what is often termed holiness standards. Consider the following scenario.

How would you feel if you found out your child (or sibling, or anyone else you loved) was doing certain things because they felt that by doing so they would gain your favor and love? They feel they must perform just right in order to have your love. By cleaning their room, taking out the trash or doing well at school (or put just about anything in here), they think these things could bring them in right standing with you and you’d love them or would love them more. They feel if they fail to perform, you might cause them harm, even kill them, or kick them out of your life. Would you not be mortified to discover your child viewed you in this manner?

They don’t understand they have your love already- with or without doing these things. These acts don’t cause you to love your child more. While you may be glad, or thankful that they obeyed you or excelled at something, your love for them doesn’t hinge on these things.

Now tie this same thought to our walk with God. How it must pain the Lord to see His children trying to earn His love and favor. He *already* loves them and *already* accepts them. He has already given them His Spirit as a pledge of their inheritance. Think about it. Was the atoning sacrifice of Jesus so that he could give us another set of laws like in the Old Testament- taste not and touch not?

Many in unhealthy churches feel that by doing certain things it will keep them in God’s favor- or at least cause Him to not harm them. Do you have a false image of God holding a baseball bat, ready and eager to whop you at the first hint of anything done wrong? That is what being in an unhealthy church will do to you.

If while we did not know God- if while we were enemies and not following God- if while we were without God, He cared for us so much that Jesus took all our sins upon Himself and then offered His righteousness to us in exchange….why do we get this idea that somehow through certain actions we can cause ourselves to be righteous before God? Or cause Him to love and accept us?

What happens in many performance oriented churches is that our faith lets go of Christ and starts to hope and trust in our works. This is what the Galatians did. They had received the Spirit by faith, but now felt they must do things to be made right in God’s sight. They were trying to find favor with God by what they did or didn’t do. They were trying to become perfect by their own human effort. It doesn’t work.

I want to share how the New Living Translation puts this passage in Galatians 6:12 & 13. “Those who are trying to force you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason. They don’t want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save. And even those who advocate circumcision don’t really keep the whole law. They only want you to be circumcised so they can brag about it and claim you as their disciples.“

Read that a few times and see if you don’t see similarities with a performance based church.

See Part Two.

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‘God Is Against You’ He Shouted!

“If you believe trinitarians are saved…God is against you.

“…If you deny a holiness message of separation from the world in dress and conduct…then God is against you.

“If you wear jewelry or condone it….God is against you.

“If you condone women cutting their hair or men growing long hair….God is against you.”

You can read more of this diatribe in the photo.

"God is against you!" shouts the Oneness Pentecostal man. — “God is against you!” shouts the Oneness Pentecostal man.

Such is what I stumbled across today as I glanced at an Apostolic discussion board. I am so thankful and glad to be away from this type of teaching.

He started his post by quoting two passages: Jeremiah 23:32 & Galatians 1:8. (This is the only part of the post not seen in the screenshot.) He used these to justify all his “God is against you” statements. What a message of love he shared! Can’t you just feel it? Don’t you want to dash out and visit his church? No wonder people in unhealthy churches develop a distorted view of God.

I am reminded of the believers in Corinth in New Testament times. Oh, did they have problems. They were carnal and divisive. Spiritual gifts were misused and there was sin among them, including sexual immorality. They were worldly and some were arrogant.

Yet Paul in his two letters to them never started shouting and naming a dozen or more ways in which God was against them. He tried to correct and teach them in love. It wasn’t about shaming them or tearing them down. He wanted to build them up and help them to see their place in the body of Christ.

To me, the harshest words in the New Testament were made by Jesus to the religious hypocrites. He told people to beware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They were the separated ones; people who appeared to be religious and following God but inside they were dead. They wanted to stand apart from others in their manner of dress and where they sat. While they prayed and looked toward the heavens, they looked down upon the publican who knew their spiritual condition, and described to God the ways in which they were holier and better than him.

The author of that post should spend some time meditating about the passage immediately before the one he quoted in Jeremiah: “Behold, I am against the prophets,” declares the LORD, “who use their tongues and declare, ‘The Lord declares.’ (NASB)

Colossians 4:5 Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone. (NLT)

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Shaking Foundations: The Start of Questions

Someone in an unhealthy church may ask a question like this:

Why did God find me in a UPC church if the teachings are wrong? What is so wrong now that was not wrong then? Why after all of these years do I have questions that rock the foundation of everything I have been taught and believe?

In responding, I could counter with, did God actually find you in a United Pentecostal Church? God was drawing you to Himself well before you stepped foot in a church. The type of church doesn’t matter. Where you were when you opened your heart to God doesn’t matter. It really has no bearing on you and God as our walk is a one-on-one relationship with Him. God could have just as easily met with you in a vacant field or a hot desert. See what I mean?

When we first come to God, we are overjoyed. We want to do anything and everything. We are not looking for things that may be wrong. We may have little to no knowledge of the Bible to know how to discern between true and false teachings. We aren’t expecting to be taught things which are not true.

So, did your church change? Was it different in the beginning? My guess is no. But your perception of it has changed. You are no longer in the beginning happy stages, ready to do anything without question that ones in leadership ask. You’ve now matured. You’ve gained knowledge. You think more critically.

When someone in an unhealthy church starts to question teachings, no matter what they may be, it often does feel like their foundation is being shaken- and in reality, it is. Yet if your foundation is based upon man’s imaginings, then you need it to be shaken, even though it doesn’t feel very good and can be quite scary.

I have found through my own experience, as well as listening to a great many people who have left the UPC or other Oneness Apostolic churches, that God often uses some incident to cause the person to start to look objectively into a matter. What that something is varies greatly. It may or may not have anything directly to do with the teachings themselves.

For me, it started when I helped at the church run daycare for the second time. Events that happened over several months helped cause me to feel that if things didn’t change, I’d be leaving the church.

I ended up voluntarily resigning my teaching position at the end of the summer program and went away for a few weeks and spent some time with UPC friends in the ministry, who knew how things could be at the church. (It has often helped me to go away somewhere while thinking things over.)

When I returned, I heard all kinds of things about a tape recording that the pastor played in a Thursday evening service. It was a Christian radio broadcast on spiritual abuse. The two guests were former members of the church. They didn’t mention the church name or any person in the church. His stated reason for playing it was so members could see what was being said about the church.

I asked to borrow the tape and found that my reaction was not what I had seen in others. I saw some truth to what they shared, though I didn’t agree with everything. Sometimes you have to have things happen directly to you in order to wake up.

I made a copy of the tape and took another trip to a couple who had left the church previously. While they listened to the tape, it was obvious the whole thing was difficult for me. It was painful to start realizing abuses that had taken place in my church and that the pastor played a part in some of it. If you were present, you would have found me pacing back and forth while they sat and listened, making occasional comments.

After my return home, I met with one of the daughters of the pastor and her husband, who had also left. That was an eye opener, too. PKs tend to see and hear many things.

From there I started to attend services less and also looked into the uncut hair issue for women. It wasn’t very long before I knew I could no longer remain. It got to a place where it didn’t even feel like my church anymore. After being a loyal member for just under 13 years, that was an odd feeling, indeed.

For me, my start into seriously questioning things was working in the daycare. I saw people do things against state rules. I was told by the pastor to lie if anyone from the state came when his daughter wasn’t there. (There was supposed to be a certain person there, with college credits, while we were open.) I got a first hand experience of what some others had gone through before me.

It had nothing to do with the church teachings at first. I believe God used a series of incidents to start to remove me from an unhealthy church environment and erroneous teachings.

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Fear of Being Judged

Will I ever lose the fear of being judged by that group?

This is a question that is often asked when a person leaves an unhealthy church. Often it is in relation to the various standards that are taught.

If you have recently left, you shouldn’t be tough on yourself in this area. This will subside and should stop over time if you sort through the various issues and become confident in what the Bible truly teaches about them.

I shouldn’t look for the approval of man but even though I know in my heart what I am doing is not wrong, why do I yet feel this way? I don’t understand it!

Unhealthy churches are often performance based. The intensity varies from church to church and is dependent upon the leadership and to an extent the members. Your acceptance is based upon your performance. How you view yourself is also based upon how well you follow the list of rules. Many of us learned to judge others while in our group, or at least looked to see if they were lining up with all the rules. Many of us soon learned that others would look at us and judge us by the outward appearance.

It is not abnormal to have struggles in this area after leaving. You know people are going to look at you and judge you because of what you witnessed while you were there. Most people do care what others think of them, especially those close.

Here is what is important, as far as I am concerned: that you believe what you are doing does not violate what is shown in scripture. As a believer, you answer to God for these things. If your heart does not condemn you in what you allow, because you see the truth of the matter in the Bible, then the opinions of people don’t mean a thing. They are not your judge.

How does God see you? This is what matters. Fortunately, God will not judge you by what others think or teach.

As you get these things deeper into your heart, and as your relationship with Jesus grows stronger and more distance is placed between you and your former church, they should no longer continue to disturb you. You may still feel hurt for awhile if someone judges you or looks you up and down disapprovingly, but you won’t go around worried that others will see you.

I am still in a UPC church and people there clearly judge me, even shun me because I don’t see anything wrong with certain standards. This is hard!

It’s more difficult to break from this while one is continually exposed to it, especially in a situation where people in the church shun you. You are continually reminded of their disdain and disapproval and are regularly subjecting yourself to the performance based atmosphere. While not impossible, it will be much harder for you to break from this mindset while you are yet attending such a church.

Something that may help you as you come to terms with it all is to think about this: What is the worst thing that could happen if someone from the church sees you wearing (whatever) or doing (whatever)?

What can their words actually do? When you think about it, for most situations, not very much can happen other than hurt feelings.

Remember the mindset that causes their reactions and that should help you to process any negativism, though it doesn’t make the rejection feel better.

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Veiled Threats In Sermons

Different ministers in the group I exited would use various stories that were intended to place fear in those attending services. It was always something bad with a person being killed in an unpleasant way. Or perhaps God smote them with an illness or disease, like my former pastor said of a son-in-law, who developed a brain tumor. Some recall stories of car accidents and train wrecks. I won’t even get into all of the rapture drills and end time scare tactics that really do a number on children.

There is one story that still remains partly in my memory, though all the details are no longer there. My former pastor knew Nathaniel Urshan, being from South Bend, Indiana. (Urshan was a long-time General Superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church.) One story was about young guys who were at some service where Urshan was speaking.

I believe they supposedly made fun in some way, may have been spoken to by Urshan and warned. They left the service and were killed in an automobile accident. The hidden message was that you do not come against a minister or God may kill you.

These stories work in a couple ways. The one I shared can be used to place fear in anyone, who would in any way, come against a minister. God will strike you down! I well remember the biblical story with the she bears from the Old Testament being told to also reinforce such a thought.

The scare tactics also help to manipulate people into doing whatever it is that the pastor wants, including following all the rules, attending every service and tithing. It can be made to feel like God is just chomping at the bit for you to mess up so that He can swoop down on you in His wrath and make you pay. Or perhaps instead, He will blow the trumpet and you will be left behind with all the unbelievers.

These stories also create an unhealthy fear of God and help to distort your image of Him. Here again we see the view of God as a harsh taskmaster, just waiting so He can somehow punish or kill someone who has upset Him. Get out of line, don’t follow the rules, leave this church, and God will see that you die in a nasty traffic accident (or some other way just as unpleasant). So much for a loving God, who isn’t willing that any should perish. That’s all over with now that you are a believer.

Fear, fear, fear, fear…….I will never stop saying it until it is no longer true…….fear permeates the teachings in unhealthy churches.

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For those who are not easily triggered, below is a great example of how some ministers use these scare tactics. It is the late L.E. Westberg, who was a well known United Pentecostal Church minister. In this sermon, he proclaims that in two separate incidents, people who had backslid died in fiery car accidents. According to him, God rejected those people, turning against them and he thinks when the preacher’s son was dying and calling out to God, that he heard God laugh at him. Tongues and interpretation are also used in an attempt to make it appear God is behind the fearful message, speaking for the last time to someone at that service. This is sick stuff.

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